Hydrogen Skills Partnership Launch

• Major players in green hydrogen have teamed up with academia and supply chain partners to launch the Hydrogen Skills Partnership
• This flagship collaboration aims to show the potential for green, sustainable skills and high-value jobs emerging from a future hydrogen sector in the UK and provide supply chain insights
• The Hydrogen Skills Partnership initiative was announced in Aberdeen during the Scottish Schools’ Hydrogen Challenge

A flagship alliance, The Hydrogen Skills Partnership, was announced on September 13, aiming to show the benefits a thriving green hydrogen sector could bring to Scotland and across the UK.

The Hydrogen Skills Partnership is made up of ScottishPower, ITM Power, Arcola Energy, Energy Transition Zone Limited, Skills Development Scotland, Aberdeen University, Robert Gordon University, North East Scotland College and the Hydrogen Partnership.

Working together, the partners will collaborate in assessing the readiness of the UK supply chain to support green hydrogen projects and highlight the potential economic value for the domestic supply chain. The Hydrogen Skills Partnership will also show the potential for green, sustainable skills and high-value jobs emerging from a future hydrogen sector, using live projects as case studies.

Commercial insights from this work will support academic, public and private sectors as they look to maximise the positive impacts emerging from the growth of a green hydrogen economy. Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen University, North East Scotland College, Energy Transition Zone and Skills Development Scotland are already working closely on a new programme as the ‘National Energy Skills Accelerator – NESA’ and this new initiative will build upon established foundations for analysing the opportunities in the green energy transition.

Announced in Aberdeen, Barry Carruthers, ScottishPower’s Hydrogen Director, explaining the importance of The Hydrogen Skills Partnership, said: “We recognise the role green hydrogen has to play in the climate emergency and we want to ensure that the UK is able to directly benefit from a thriving green hydrogen economy. We’re already working on a number of significant green hydrogen projects across the UK and The Hydrogen Skills Partnership will help bring together experts from industry and academia to ensure we’re able to develop a supply chain and skilled workforce who stand ready to help us make the UK one of the world leaders in green hydrogen.”

ScottishPower is currently involved in a number of green hydrogen projects in Scotland, including an initiative to deliver the UK’s largest green hydrogen facility at their Whitelee Windfarm close to Glasgow. This project is being delivered with partners including ITM Power, owners of the largest electrolyser manufacturing facility in the world. The company is headquartered in Sheffield and have ambitions to deliver future facilities in the UK to keep pace with growing demand.

“ITM Power manufactures and promotes world-class green hydrogen solutions with a view to creating a sustainable society, free from fossil fuels, so that the next generation can breathe clean air. If we are to achieve this, we need to work closely with the workforce of the future to give them the skills they need to work within, and contribute towards, the future green economy. The Hydrogen Skills Accelerator will use the green hydrogen projects being developed today, to build and secure the supply chain opportunities of tomorrow, enabling us to share those insights from the outset of the growing green hydrogen sector,” said Dr Graham Cooley, CEO, ITM Power.

Arcola Energy is working to deliver hydrogen fuel cell electric zero emission heavy duty vehicles in Scotland and establishing a new manufacturing facility and team at MSIP in Dundee. Supported by ScottishPower and ITM Power, Arcola Energy is currently delivering the Scottish Schools’ Hydrogen Challenge for COP26, helping to educate secondary school children on the role of green hydrogen in tackling climate change and the decarbonisation of transport. The announcement of The Hydrogen Skills Partnership took place at the Aberdeen City Final of the Challenge.

Dr Ben Todd, CEO, Arcola Energy, said: “As a leader in hydrogen and fuel cell integration for heavy-duty vehicles and transport, Arcola Energy is working with Government, academia and industry partners to develop new skills and supply chain opportunities for zero-emission vehicle powertrains. The Hydrogen Skills Partnership complements our work by bringing a focus to the future jobs and skills requirements for the future green hydrogen supply chain.”

“The Hydrogen Skills Partnership is a great example of how industry and academia can collaborate for the benefit of the UK. We are very proud to be playing our role to equip Scotland and the UK with the diverse energy workforce required to deliver the energy transition and a thriving hydrogen economy,” added Professor Paul de Leeuw, Chair of the National Energy Skills Accelerator.

About the Hydrogen Accelerator

The Hydrogen Accelerator, based at the University of St Andrews, is facilitating the realisation of Scotland’s hydrogen future by bringing together, public bodies, industry, research organisations, and higher and further education institutions.

The Hydrogen Accelerator provides expertise in the design and delivery of hydrogen projects, provides vital project management guidance and support, coordinates Scotland’s key hydrogen initiatives thereby enabling capabilities to create new innovative opportunities, and conduct analysis of the evolution of hydrogen-related technologies.

The Hydrogen Accelerator is providing a central role in defining and delivering decarbonisation in Scotland.

About Arcola Energy

Arcola Energy is a leader in hydrogen and fuel cell integration, specialising in zero-emission solutions for heavy-duty vehicles and transport applications. As a systems engineering specialist and Tier 1 integrator, Arcola addresses the deployment gap between rapidly evolving low-carbon technologies and efficient real-world applications by developing market-ready solutions, reducing development cost and time-to-market.

About ITM Power

ITM Power plc manufactures integrated hydrogen energy solutions for grid balancing, energy storage and the production of renewable hydrogen for transport, renewable heat and chemicals. ITM Power plc was admitted to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 2004. In October 2019, the Company announced the completion of a £58.8 million fundraising, including an investment by Linde of £38 million, together with the formation of a joint venture with Linde to focus on delivering renewable hydrogen to large-scale industrial projects worldwide. ITM Power signed a deal to deploy a 10MW electrolyser at Shell’s Rhineland refinery. In November 2020, ITM Power completed a £172m fundraising, including a £30m investment by Snam, one of the world’s leading energy infrastructure operators. ITM Power operates from the world’s largest electrolyser factory in Sheffield with a capacity of 1GW (1,000MW) per annum. ITM Power received an order for the world’s largest PEM electrolyser of 24MW from Linde in January 2021. Other customers and partners include Sumitomo, Ørsted, Phillips 66, Scottish Power, Siemens Gamesa, Cadent, Northern Gas Networks, Gasunie, RWE, Engie, GNVert, National Express, Toyota, Hyundai and Anglo American among others.

About ScottishPower

ScottishPower is part of the Iberdrola Group, one of the world’s new green energy majors and a world leader in wind energy. The Group has outlined a €75 billion investment plan to 2025 as a firm commitment to a green economic recovery, of which £10bn will be in the UK. This investment strategy in clean energy generation and networks infrastructure will lead to the Iberdrola Group becoming a zero carbon company in Europe by 2030.

ScottishPower is the UK’s only fully integrated energy company, generating only green energy and transporting and supplying energy across the UK. In 2018, the company became the first integrated energy company in the UK to generate 100% green electricity. We are one of the UK’s leading renewables developers, operating nearly 3GW of renewable assets – enough to provide the annual energy needs of 1.8 million homes – and we have a further 7GW in the pipeline. Our Energy Networks business transmits and distributes energy to over 3.5m homes in the south of Scotland, north Wales and the north-west of England and is responsible for the operation and maintenance of over 105,000km of overhead lines and underground cables. Our Retail business supplies energy to nearly 5 million customers.